LAST year, viewers were completely bowled over by The ’80s: The Decade That Made Us. An era when the social landscape was moulded by fashion, culture, music, tragedies, the rise of celebrities, video games and PCs.
A year later, the era that followed is placed under the microscope.
Actor Rob Lowe takes viewers on a nostalgic exploration of the 1990s, where politics, more scandal, world news events, tragedies like Tupac Shakur’s death, music, TV shows, technology and celebrity sub-culture fed into our daily lives.
Co-executive producer, Jane Root has an impressive legacy in television, foremost as the first woman to be appointed as a channel controller for the BBC, and second, for the journalist’s subsequent TV projects – like working with the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson, on Open the Box, which became the catalyst to her book, Open the Box: About Television (1986) and The Media Show.
She was also behind the commissioning of British series like The Office, Coupling, The Weakest Link, Top Gear, What Not to Wear and Who Do You Think You Are?
And that’s not forgetting her prowess with factual shows like Restoration, A History of Britain.
Given her wealth of knowledge when it comes to producing and television, Tonight asked her to shed light on what piques her interest when it comes to making a documentary.
Root explains: “Simply, that it’s interesting. And that we have a hunch it will be interesting to a fair number of other people as well.
“I particularly like things that combine serious subject matter with lighter, popular culture in an interesting way.”
On that note, she expanded on her views by shedding light on the inspiration behind The ’80s: The Decade That Made Us.
She notes: “The simple answer – watching Mrs Doubtfire, with Robin Williams, with my then six-year-old daughter and her asking why a phone was tied to the wall. She just couldn’t comprehend that there might have been wall phones before cellphones. And that got me thinking about the ’80s.”
Of course, that meant threading together a long list of interconnected elements.
Root shares: “You’ve got to have a very big whiteboard and hundreds of index cards and sticky notes. Then you just go from there…”
And this brings us to her latest project.
She points out that The ’90s: The Last Great Decade? wasn’t exactly pre-planned.
The co-executive producer shares: “It wasn’t a package deal, but early on we did have a bit of a fantasy that it might continue.”
Expanding on the foundation of the show, she offers: “Well, we call it ‘the last great decade’ because it really was a period of unparalleled optimism and growth. The Cold War was over, apartheid was coming to an end and there was unparalleled growth and technological development in many parts of the world.”
On the interviews they lined-up, she reveals: “It’s always hard to choose, but I loved hearing from Susan Sarandon about Thelma & Louise and Rosanne on Rosanne. Plus, it’s great to have statesmen of the level of Tony Blair and General Colin Powell.”
As for the content that will leave viewers completely astounded as it homes in on lesser known facts, Root recalls two of her favourite.
“In 1997, Microsoft employed 31 000 people; 21 000 became millionaires, causing the biggest human resources headache in history as many decide to retire aged 34 years old or less.
“And the US spent an estimated $134 billion preparing for Y2K,” she highlights.
While it was easier to access better-quality archived footage for the ’90s, it was a bit of a nightmare whittling down the iconic moments that helped define the era.
She laughs: “It was endless heartache and arguing. Well, actually it was very hard to choose – there is so much. But I was thrilled with James Carville’s sum up of: ‘Which didn’t you like – the peace or the prosperity?’”
Summarising the overall message of this microscopic glance into the ’90s, Root offers: “I think we’re exploring the uniqueness of a particular era, often for the first time, trying to draw all the different threads together. We’re saying that culture is neither top down or bottom up – it’s the way different aspects combine and affect each other that makes a period remarkable.”
Tonight’s show explores the reality phenomenon, Bill Clinton unveils his skill with a sax, Bill Gates bounces back from a calamity with the launch of his Window ’95 package (sans a web browser), and Nirvana’s lead singer, Kurt Cobain, finds the paparazzi attention insufferable.
• The ’90s: The Last Great Decade? airs on National Geographic Channel (DStv channel 181) at 7.10pm on Mondays.